Welcome, Morning!

Branching aside

Magpies were from the beginning my main interest but, curiously enough, the first birds to enter my computer (so to say) were swallows, in August 2005. You can well imagine how green I was when I tell you that my first thought was that they were sparrows, and so I told in public. They sure made rather queer sparrows but I was (and still am, though less)so ignorant that didn't think of searching what they really were till more than two years later.

Swallows are quite common around here from early Spring to late Summer and they have the habit of perching on wires and clothes ropes to dress up their feathers and sing their little hearts out... in the early morning. Of course, sparrows are more daring, but swallows seem to have not much more fear provided there is some air between you and them. Consequently, it's relatively easy to photograph them during their morning toilet and concerts.

Unfortunately, they seem to be afraid of big, clumsy, shiny black artefacts like my Zenits, so once I returned to my sister her little digi, I couldn't shot swallows anymore. But I keep trying, and one day...

One swallow did make a summer

The clack of the shutter

When it began to dawn on me, back in 2003, that there was really a lot more than sparrows out there, in my own balcony, one of my first thoughts were that photography could be made a great ally in this new (to me) field and, incidentally, create amusement for others too.

Unfortunately, photography as I practice it (manual film cameras) requires quite a well fed purse.. that I haven't. Accordingly, my first bird-photographs exist only in negatives and a contact sheet—from which the photograph in the left was scanned and my only camera at that time (that Zenit 11 you see in the photo) began to show signs of ageing in the form of light leaks. I had not money enough to send the camera to repair and take photos at the same time, so I ended up deciding to run just a roll or two per year and praying that the leak didn't advance too much.

Combine that with the difficult (for me) task at hand and the long and short of it is that I didn't manage to take even barely good photos of birds till 2005, with a little 3 Mp Cybershot my sister lent me.

A faint breath of wind

I have, of course, seen birds all my life and I have always loved them but, for no reason at all, I never thought that I could actually observe and study something other than sparrows without taking long trips to the country.

And then one day I looked out of my window and saw a magpie alight on the wall that divides my flatroof from my neighbour's. That was the surprise and when she took off, her wings started a breath of wind in my heart and in my mind that has not yet ceased.